Saturday, November 4, 2017

"the classical metaphysics [practiced by Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas] need not blush at its fecund alliance with technology"

"Despite the
rejoinders that it is possible to formulate in face of the accusation that
metaphysics has bonds with artifaction [(la technique, technics, technology)], it therefore appears
clearly that these bonds, if in fact real, can be understood much more
positively than is suggested by the philosophy of Meßkirch [(i.e.
Heidegger)]. Its critique here is
finally fecund in this [respect], that it obliges one to bring to light the
characteristics by which a classical metaphysics precisely escapes it. It in fact obliges one to recognize
the analogy of the causes and their non-reduction to the formal cause. It forces a revalorization of the causes
material, efficient, and final. But more
profoundly still, it obliges one to look more closely into [(à s’interroger
sur)] the first efficient cause’s mode of action. It underscores its bond with the wisdom that
can also extend ultimately beyond all preoccupation with artifaction [(toute preoccupation
technique)], because in
the first cause resides an understanding [(connaissance)] of the causes, and because the [human]
search for the causes [of a phenomenon] results in a partial accession to that
ultimate understanding. At the same time
it puts a finger on the effect of this cause, namely the existence [(l’être, i.e.
esse)] of the entity[, not to mention
the very existence and operation of the causes].
[And] finally, it accomplishes in its own way the [very] program to
which Heidegger at times (for example in the lecture 'Contribution to the question of Being') attaches himself,
namely, a revivification or appropriation of metaphysics by the question of
Being, because it [(the question of Being)] has been lost from view, and concerning
which [program of revivification] one might ask oneself why Heidegger himself
did not carry it through to success.

. . . As distinguished from the transcendental metaphysics
that developed out of the work of Scotus, "the classical metaphysics [practiced
by Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas] need not blush at its fecund alliance with
artifaction [(la technique)]. It
rediscovers, inasmuch as [it] is a form of wisdom [(selon ce qu’est la
sagesse)], the reception of being through the causes, and [it] renews [its
friendship] with the question of Being that lies at its root [(origine)], without
having to pass first through negativity and anguish, but rather through
astonishment and admiration."